A King's Cutter (21 page)

‘What is the state of your own ships, Admiral?' asked Brown.

‘That, Major, is a deuced canny question.'

Admiral Duncan's fleet deserted him piecemeal in the next few days. Off the Texel Captain Trollope in the
Russell
, 74, with a handful of cutters, luggers and a frigate or two, maintained the illusion of blockade. Five of his battleships left for the Nore.

On the 29th May Duncan threw out the signal to weigh. His remaining ships stood clear of Yarmouth Roads until, one by one, they turned south-west, towards the Thomas. Three hours after sailing only
Venerable
, 74,
Adamant
, 50 and the smaller
Trent
and
Circe
, together with
Kestrel
, remained loyal to their admiral.

The passage across the North Sea was a dismal one. In a way Drinkwater was relieved they were returning to the Texel. Wearying though blockade duty was, he felt instinctively that that was where they should be, no matter to what straits they were reduced. Brown thought so too, for after sending a cipher by the telegraph to the Admiralty, he had joined the cutter with Lord Dungarth's blessing.

‘I think, Mr Drinkwater,' he had said, ‘that you may take the credit for having set a portfire to the train now and we must wait patiently upon events.'

And patiently they did wait, for the first days of June the wind was in the east. De Winter's fleet of fourteen sail of the line, eight frigates and seventy-three transports and storeships were kept in the Texel by the two British battleships, a few frigates and small fry who made constant signals to one another in a ruse to persuade the watching Dutch that a great fleet lay in the offing of which this was but the inshore squadron.

But would such a deception work?

The splash of a cannon shot showed briefly in the water off
Kestrel
's starboard bow where she lay in the yeasty waters of the Schulplen Gat, close to the beach at Kijkduin.

‘They have brought horse artillery today, Mr Drinkwater,' said Major Brown from the side of his mouth as both men stared through their telescopes.

Drinkwater could see the knot of officers watching them. One was dismounted and kneeling on the ground, a huge field glass on the shoulder of an orderly grovelling in front of him.

‘That one in the brown coat, d'you know who he is?'

Drinkwater swung his glass. He could see a man in a brown drab coat, but it was not in the least familiar. ‘No sir.'

‘That,' said Brown with significant emphasis, ‘is Wolfe Tone . . .'

Drinkwater looked again. There was nothing remarkable about the man portrayed as a traitor to his country.
Kestrel
bucked inshore and Drinkwater turned to order her laid off a point more. ‘I'll give them the usual salute then.'

‘Yes, no! Wait! Look at the man next but one to Tone.' Brown was excited and Drinkwater put up his glass again to see a tall figure emerge from behind a horse. Even at that distance Drinkwater knew the man was Santhonax, a Santhonax resplendent in the blue and gold of naval uniform, and it seemed to Drinkwater that across that tumbling quarter mile of breakers and sea-washed sand that Santhonax stared back at him. He lowered the glass and looked at Brown. ‘Santhonax.' Brown nodded.

‘You were right, Mr Drinkwater. Now give 'em the usual.'

Drinkwater waved forward and saw Traveller stand back from the gun. The four-pounder roared and the men cheered when the ball ricochetted amongst the officers. Their horses reared in fright and one fell screaming on broken legs.

‘Stand by heads'l sheets there! Weather runner! Stand by to gybe! Mind your head, Major!' Drinkwater called to Brown who had hoisted himself onto Number 11 gun to witness the fall of shot. ‘Up helm . . . mainsheet now, watch there! Watch!'

Kestrel
turned away from the shore as the field-gun barked again.
The shot ripped through the bulwarks on the quarter and passed between the two helmsmen. The wind of its passage sent them gasping to the deck and Drinkwater jumped for the big tiller. Then the cutter was stern to the beach and rolling over in a thunderous clatter of gybing spars and canvas. ‘Larboard runner!' Men tramped aft with the fall of the big double burton and belayed it, the sheets were trimmed and
Kestrel
steadied on her course out of the Schulpen Gat to work her way round the Haakagronden to where Duncan awaited her report.

The admiral was on
Venerable
's quarterdeck when Drinkwater went up the side. He saluted and made his report to Duncan. The admiral nodded and asked, ‘And how is Lieutenant Griffiths today?'

Drinkwater shook his head. ‘The surgeon's been up with him all night, sir, but there appears to be no improvement. This is the worst I've known him, sir.'

Duncan nodded. ‘He's still adamant he doesn't want a relief?'

‘Aye sir.'

‘Very well, Mr Drinkwater. Return to your station.'

The strange situation that Duncan found himself in of an admiral almost without ships, compelled him to tread circumspectly. He did not wish to transfer officers or disrupt the delicate loyalties of his pitifully small squadron. Griffiths was known to him and had indicated the professional worth of
Kestrel
's sailing master. The admiral, astute in the matter of personal evaluation, had formed his own favourable impression of Drinkwater's abilities.

As the week of easterly winds ended, when the period of greatest danger seemed to be over, Duncan received reinforcements. Sir Roger Curtis arrived with some units of the Channel Fleet.
Glatton
, the curious ex-Indiaman armed only with carronades, had mutinied, gone to the Downs and cooled her heels. There her people resolved not to desert their admiral and returned to station. Other odd ships arrived including a Russian squadron under Admiral Hanikov. Then, at the end of June, the Nore mutiny had collapsed and Duncan's ships returned to him. At full strength the North Sea squadron maintained the blockade through the next spell of easterly winds at the beginning of July.

Kestrel
made her daily patrols while Griffiths lay sweating in his cot, Appleby a fretful shadow over him. They saw no more of Santhonax and still the Dutch did not come out. Major Brown became increasingly irritated by the turn of events. Santhonax had shot his bolt. The Nore mutiny had collapsed and the French captain
had failed, just as he had failed on the
Culloden
. Now, if he was still at the Texel, Santhonax had failed to coerce De Winter.

‘A man of action, Mr Drinkwater, cannot sit on his arse for long. This business of naval blockade is the very essence of tedium.'

Drinkwater smiled over his coffee. ‘I doubt you would be of that opinion, sir, if the conduct of the ships were yours. For us it is a wearing occupation, requiring constant vigilance.'

‘Oh I daresay,' put in Brown crossly, ‘but I've a feeling that De Winter won't shift. When we next report to the admiral I shall transfer to the flagship and take the first despatch vessel to Yarmouth. No, Mr Drinkwater, that train of powder has gone out.'

‘Well sir,' answered Drinkwater rising from the table and reaching for his hat, ‘perhaps it was a little longer than you expected.'

Major Brown stared after the younger man, trying to decide if he had been the victim of impertinence or perception. Certainly he bridled at Drinkwater's apparent lack of respect for a major in His Majesty's Life Guards but he knew Nathaniel was no fool, no fool at all. Brown remembered the dinner at the Fountain and Drinkwater's insistence that the presence of the uniforms, charts and money indicated the
Citoyenne Janine
held a secret. He also remembered that he had been less than frank about what he had discovered at Tunbridge Wells.

It was true, as he had said to Lord Dungarth, that he had not
found
anything. But where the wolf has slept the grass remains rank. That much he had learned from the Iroquois, and he was no longer in doubt that Santhonax lay frequently at Tunbridge, in enviable circumstances too. A refuge in Hortense's arms was typically Gallic, and if Santhonax had not persuaded her to flee from France in the first place he had turned that fortuitous exit to his own advantage.

But Brown could not admit as much to Dungarth before
Kestrel
's officers. He had lain a trap and until Santhonax sprung it the hunter remained silent. He had learned that too from the painted men of the Six Nations.

Whether Dungarth had guessed as much when he had ordered surveillance of the Dowager Comtesse's household mattered little. Santhonax had eluded Brown just as Brown had escaped Santhonax from Paris.

The major bit his lip over the recollection. Had the girl detected him? As he had seen her on the arm of her handsome naval lover in Paris, had she perhaps seen Brown himself some time during the negotiations with Barrallier and De Tocqueville? That would have
revealed his true allegiance, and Etienne Montholon had been a party to the arrangements. He tried to recollect if she might have discovered him with Santhonax during his spell as a clerk in the Ministry of Marine. Then he shrugged, ‘It's possible . . .'

Santhonax had reached the coast before him, had nearly cut off
Kestrel
but for Madoc's skill and young Drinkwater's timely rescue. It brought him full circle. Was Drinkwater right and Santhonax still trying to bully Jan De Winter into sailing? Brown knew Santhonax to be ruthless. He was certain the man had had De Tocqueville assassinated in London, the more so as it removed a threat to his occupancy of Hortense's bed. And the officer commanding the naval forces at Roscoff had been shot for his prudence in strengthening a convoy escort by the addition of the
Citoyenne Janine
. His mistake was in requisitioning Santhonax's own lugger. Brown's reflection that that meant one less Frenchman to worry about begged the pressing question. It pecked at his present frustration, counselling caution, caution.

Was Santhonax still at the Texel? Was Drinkwater right? Did the train of powder still sputter here, off the Haakagronden? Was De Winter under French pressure?

‘It's possible,' he repeated to himself, ‘and there is only one way to find out.'

And he shuddered, the old image of geese over a grave springing unbidden into his mind.

Drinkwater was very tired. The regular swing of the oarsmen had a soporific effect now that they had run into the smoother water of the Zeegat van Texel. Astern of them in the darkness the curve of sand dunes and marram grass curled round to Kijkduin and the Schulpen Gat, where
Kestrel
lay at anchor. It was late before full darkness had come and they had little time to execute their task. Drinkwater pulled the tiller slightly to larboard, following the coast round to the east. He steadied it again, feeling the bulk of the man next to him.

Major Brown, wrapped in a cloak under which he concealed a small bag of provisions, had insisted that he be landed. From his bunk Griffiths had been powerless to prevent what he felt to be a hopeless task. He did not doubt Brown's abilities but the gleaning of news of De Winter's intentions was a desperate throw. Griffiths had therefore instructed Drinkwater to land the agent himself. Johnson, the carpenter, had contrived a pair of clogs and they had been carefully scuffed and dirtied as Brown prepared himself in the
seamen's cast-offs as a grubby and suitably malodorous fisherman.

Drinkwater turned the boat inshore and whispered ‘Oars'. The men ceased pulling and a few moments later the bow of the gig grounded with a gentle lift. Brown shrugged off the cloak and scrambled forward between the pairs of oarsmen. Drinkwater followed him onto the beach and walked up it with him to discover a landmark by which they might both return to the spot. They found some fishing stakes which were sufficient to answer their purpose.

‘I'll be off then, Mr Drinkwater.' Brown shouldered his bag and a dimly perceived hand was thrust uncertainly out in an uncharacteristic gesture. ‘Until two days hence then. Wish me luck . . . I don't speak Dutch.'

As he turned away Drinkwater noticed the carriage of confidence was missing, the step unsure. Then he jeered at his womanish qualms. Walking in clogs was bad enough. Doing it in soft sand damned near impossible.

On the afternoon of the day on which they were due to recover Major Brown
Kestrel
sailed into the Schulpen Gat, taking the tide along the coast on her routine patrol. When the masts of the Dutch fleet had been counted over the intervening sand dunes and attempts made to divine whether De Winter had advanced his preparations to sail, which all except Drinkwater were now beginning to doubt, she would retire seawards until her midnight rendezvous with the agent.

As she stood inshore towards the battery at Kijkduin, Drinkwater scanned the beach. The usual officer and orderly were observing their progress. He slewed the telescope and caught in its dancing circle the rampart of the battery. Then he saw something that turned his blood cold.

A new structure had been erected above the gun embrasures, gaunt against the blue of heaven and terrifying in its sinister outline. And from the gibbet, unmistakable in the faded blue of
Kestrel
's slops, swung the body of Major Brown.

Drinkwater lowered the glass and called for Jessup. The bosun came up, immediately aware of the cold gleam in Drinkwater's grey eyes. ‘Sir?'

‘See if Lieutenant Griffiths is fit enough to come on deck.' Drinkwater's voice was strangely controlled, like a man compelled to speak when he would rather weep.

‘Nat, what the deuce is this . . . ?' Appleby came protesting out of the companionway.

‘ 'Vast that, Harry!' snapped Drinkwater, seeing Griffiths following the surgeon on deck, the flutter of his nightgown beneath his coat.

Without a word Drinkwater handed the telescope to Griffiths and pointed at the battery. Even as he watched the lieutenant for a sign of emotion Drinkwater heard the dull concussion of the first cannon shot roll over the sea. He did not see the fall of shot, only the whitening of the already pallid Welshman and when he lowered the glass Griffiths, too, spoke as though choking.